


Black Out

by NerdsbianHokie



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Loss of Powers, being held captive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-05
Updated: 2018-05-05
Packaged: 2019-05-02 11:50:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14544123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NerdsbianHokie/pseuds/NerdsbianHokie
Summary: It isn't a solar flare. They aren't blowing out in one go.It's more of a burn out.Slow, steady.She isn't using her powers, but without the yellow sun, they're vanishing anyway.





	Black Out

There are no bars. Bars she could bend or snap or force out of place. Instead, they have her completely surrounded by some sort of energy field.

It doesn't hurt her. There is no zap of electricity or repulsion of force. She can put her hands on the field without harm.

She just can't break it, can't get past it.

The second day she tries digging and punching through the floor. The shimmer of the field in the ground in that corner is a harsher reminder than the rest of the cell.

She's trapped.

She's locked in a box in a room so dark she has to use her super vision to see more than a few feet from the cell walls.

(she wonders, multiple times, if this is what Alex had felt like, trapped in that tank)

(she wonders, after a few days, what Alex had done to pass the hours)

(she wonders, constantly, what Alex is doing to find her)

It's on the fourth day someone finally shows up. The swoosh of automatic doors. The brief flash of fluorescent lights. Footsteps.

The glow from the energy field sends harsh shadows across the man's face, tints his lab coat purple.

He talks.

He asks no questions but he talks.

He's a lead scientist, for some project, and they’re interested.

“Our reports say you lost your powers last week,” he says.

“Our reports say you only got them back a few days before we apprehended you,” he says.

“We wish to know how your powers work,” he says.

She cuts him off with a blast of heat vision that spreads out across the field in fractals and arcs.

He clicks his tongue and tells her to not waste her energy and leaves.

She ignores him.

She blasts and punches and screams until she can't anymore.

Then she curls up on the cot in the corner and falls asleep trying not to cry.

She loses track of the days after that.

Food gets sent through the field encased in some sort of neutralizing shield. It's enough to keep her from starving, but never enough to keep her full.

There are usually ten meals between visits from the doctor. Sometimes there are nine, sometimes there are eleven, but usually it is ten.

He never says much, but he talks and talks and talks.

During the sixth visit, he spends the entire time goading.

“The DEO has no clues,” he says.

“They're giving up,” he says.

“They don't need you,” he says.

When he leaves, she beats the hole in the corner to twice its size.

She loses track of his visits between sixteen and eighteen.

Her hair is limp and greasy. Her stomach has stopped growling.

By the time she notices  _ it, _ she has no idea how long it has been.

It's her vision she notices first, when she can't see into the darkness as far.

It's slow, but once she notices it, she can't ignore it.

Super vision.

Heat vision.

Flight.

Strength.

It isn't a solar flare. They aren't blowing out in one go.

It's more of a burn out.

Slow, steady.

She isn't using her powers, but without the yellow sun, they're vanishing anyway.

She rips a bar from the cot, iron and straight and strong. It bends easily beneath her hands.

She tests after every other meal. The first bar snaps after countless tests, countless meals, and she pulls another off. And another.

Each bend takes more effort, more time, until the day, with aching muscles and sweat mixing with tears, she can no longer get the metal to move.

It clatters to the ground after bouncing off the energy shield.

She slumps to the ground, leaning back against the bed. Her mind races with formulas and equations and she fights against the hunger and pain to figure out how long it has taken.

How long has she been kept out of the sun.

How long has she been locked up without rescue.

Too long, is all she can figure.

She stops counting, stops testing. She sits on the cot and stares at the floor as the doctor speaks and taunts and brags.

It's during a meal when it happens.

The door opens with a swoosh, then doesn't close.

The sound of gunfire bursts into the room.

Voices and cries and shouts.

More noise than she has heard since before.

Then a specific noise.

Her name.

“Kara! Kara, look at me, please.”

She looks up, looks at Alex.

Alex is wearing her helmet, and yelling into her com, and resting her gun against her shoulder.

The energy field drops, sizzling out and fading to the ground. The purple tint the world has held vanishes.

And Alex is kneeling in front of her and her helmet is off and her hair is longer and she is reaching out.

Kara states at the contact, the first she has had in ages.

“You found me.”

Hey voice is raw, rough against her throat.

Alex nods and apologizes and ignores the grease in Kara's hair as she pushes it out of her face.

Kara lets herself be led out of the room, of the complex.

Alex's fingers dig into her side in a way she has never felt before. Alex's strength holds her up in a way it has plenty of times before.

The rays of the sun wash over Kara once they are outside.

She sucks in a breath as some tension in her muscles release, and she turns to the sun.

The DEO will have her under sun lamps for the night, she's sure of it, but she will soak in as much from the actual sun as she can until then.

**Author's Note:**

> Was thinking about Kara possibly losing powers due to being kept from sunlight, so this happened.


End file.
